Rachel is here!

Christmas season really is here, as are summer and sunny days, as is some holiday from work, as is RACHEL!! She arrived from Ft Portal, Uganda, via Kampala and Johannesburg, on Monday night. So far we've been loving sharing about our lives and laughing and eating and visiting the beach and making a list of all the foods we want to eat this month (like cinnamon rolls and smoothies). More stories and pics to come soon.

Some Neighborhood Signs

Welcome to our street, Alma Road, in the suburb of Rosebank! (These photos were taken on a rainy day last week. It's still early summer here, so some days are overcast and cool.)



Hey, Mom and Dad, this apartment building is just around the corner from us. Fancy a visit? You’ll feel right at home.

As part of the Rosebank neighborhood security, our community pays for a bicycle patrol round-the-clock. One or two men are always on guard and do regular circuits around the neighborhood. A lot of these signs are posted around the area, and this one is above our mailbox and front gate (that’s us, number 1!).

Can you guess what this means?
(Answer: “hooting” is “honking your car horn”. ‘Honking’ and ‘horn’ have very different meanings here, so you better say ‘hoot’ and ‘hooter’ and stay safe!)

Thanksgiving Dinner, December 1

We invited 8 friends to join us on Saturday, Dec 1 for a Thanksgiving afternoon meal, done potluck style. Everyone contributed a dish, and one friend even brought the needed extra plates, cutlery, and wine glasses! Since it was a lovely afternoon, we sat outside in the back garden behind our building. Our next-door neighbor, Mrs Bell (who looks out for us), also loaned us six folding chairs and some casserole dishes.

Yes, we were even able to have turkey, since they’ve recently begun being imported from the US and Brazil for the holiday season. This was Jul’s first time preparing a turkey (thanks for the tips, Mum!), and we’re happy to say that it was a success. Since we can’t get all the same ingredients here, we didn’t follow a ‘traditional American’ menu, but we stayed true to the ethos of coming together for a meal, having some time to reflect on the year, and enjoying each other’s company. We even went for a brief jaunt around the neighborhood between the meal and the pie!

(setting the table in our garden)

(the 10 of us around the table - you can see the windows of our flat in the background)

(meandering around the neighborhood on a post-dinner stroll)

(the 9 of us - minus Randy - front left to right are Heather, Jim, Jul, Tulani, Vuyi, Tanya, Mark, Blanche, and Fritz)

Visit to Jack and Marianne's new home

Our “African parents” (Fritz’s parents, who also hosted us upon our arrival here this past June) recently moved from Cape Town to Mossel Bay, a town about 4 hours east along the coast. Thus we hadn’t seen them for a few months and wanted to visit them in their new house. So this past weekend we drove over (along with Fritz and friend Mark) and enjoyed two nights and days with them.

Jack and Marianne’s hospitality was warm and generous, and we enjoyed our time – and all Marianne’s good food – immensely! It was particularly nice to be in a home over “Thanksgiving weekend”. Highlights include an evening walk along the beach, eating a traditional Afrikaner-Cape dish of ‘waterblommetjie bredie’ (stew with lamb knuckles, water hyacinth flowers, and potatoes), watching rugby (though Jul was in the other room marking/grading exam papers), and simply being in their home, sharing stories and gazing out the windows into the bay.

Jul and Marianne in the kitchen before breakfast - yogurt with muesli and fresh fruit (nectarines and apricots are in season), toast with lots of toppings (cheese, jams, figs), and coffee.

Mark just finished his thesis for a MA in Landscape Architecture. UCT has one of only two such programs in the country, and Mark graduated at the top of his class. Here he shares a few of his plans from his thesis project. Impressive and fascinating!




Along the section of beach closest to their house there is a rocky strip between the water and the sand, which creates tidal pools. Because of some recent heavy rains, the crashing of the waves on the rocks created a lot of sea foam, which you can see in the photo.

View from our stoep

Stoep = Afrikaans word for front porch

A Friday morning view of the amazing clouds coming over Devil's Peak and part of Table Mountain. This is from our front steps - well, actually, Jim took it from the floor above us (we're on the ground floor) - you can see the red roofs of UCT at the base of the mountain. The area where we live is on the eastern or back-side of Table Mountain, so the 'classic' view (like on the header of our blog) is as seen from the west. Isn't this beautiful?!